«Archangel Mychael» and «Bohdan Khmelnytsky»: Projects of Coat of Arms of Kyiv City of 1942 and 1944 in the Anton Sereda’s Artistic Heritage

The aim of the publication is to reveal the role of the Ukrainian graphic artist Anton Khomych (Fomych) Sereda (1890–1961) in the process of creation of Kyiv city coat of arms in 1942 and 1944 and to present the works made by the artist. The research methodology includes the principles of objectivity, historicism and comprehensive study of historical sources. In addition to general scientifi c approaches in historical research, methods typical for purely heraldic analysis have been used. Objective study of graphic works of heraldic nature requires from the researcher specifi c approaches, namely the correlation of such images with the basic rules of heraldry and the norms of blazonry. The application of the comparative method was necessary to compare and critically analyze the source information taken from the archive's documents. The scientifi c novelty of the article is to cover a little-known episode in the history of Kyiv city heraldry and to determine the personal contribution of A. Sereda in creating Kyiv's coat of arms. New sources have been introduced into scientifi c circulation, expanding the knowledge about the process of creating city's coat of arms in 1940s and giving the opportunity to provide a new more accurate attribution for the sketching draft of Kyiv city coat of arms, which was published in 1990, and make conclusions about the context and conditions of its appearance. Conclusions. According to comparative analysis of the documents from the A. Sereda's personal fond in the Central State Archives Museum of Literature and Arts of Ukraine was found that the sketch, fi rst published in 1990 and previously considered as the work of H. Narbut, is a graphic realization of the project of Kyiv city coat of arms of 1942. The previously unknown attempt of the Soviet authorities to create a new coat of arms of Kyiv in 1944 is considered and a probable interpretation for the symbolism of A. Sereda's project is suggested. There is a signifi cant structural similarity between the sketches of 1942 and 1944, which, however, completely differed in symbolic content. Both projects were not implemented and remained unknown. As a result, the above information allows us to adjust the existing knowledge about the role of A. Sereda in the process of creating coat of arms in the fi rst half of the 20 century in general and in the drafting projects of the city arms of Kyiv in particular.